Ex Cinis Cineris
by Lord Diago
Summary: Tamriel after the Oblivion Crisis is a dangerous place. Written before Skyrim came out, and set after the Oblivion Crisis.
1. Chapter 1

Ex Cinis Cineris: Out of the Ashes.

The ebony carriages had stopped at the foot of the mountains. The group had had to hike the rest of the way up.

Needless to say, the mages had a harder time than the battlemages and mundane mercenaries. Nevertheless, with potion and Restorative magic they gamely made their way up.

Sundercliff was inaccessible, there was no doubt about that, but contacts in Morrowind and Cyrodiil reported that the Telvanni had managed to bring a veritable army to it, and had probably hired even more soldiers from within Cyrodiil.

Yes, the black-clothed Bretons had done their homework, alright. High Rock is a long way from the Cyrodiil-Morrowind border, and mages do not travel a third across Tamriel for no good reason.

When they reached the main entrance, the group leader, a young brown-haired and doe-eyed Breton man, had pushed his way past the sweaty men (in great distaste) that made up the front of their little procession and placed his hand over the huge lock.

With a blast of white light the lock was broken, and with a wave of black-gloved hands the heavy wooden doors swung open.

'Miranda!' the young man yelled to the back. A girl, no older than seventeen, made her way to the front to stand next to him. She took a few steps inside the structure.

Her eyes glowed violet and magenta, and it was a few moments before she spoke.

'I count over thirty Dunmer in the front, then about a hundred in the second area, with a sprinkling of Khajiit and Argonians -probably laborers-. It gets hazy further back. There's probably walls between the groups. We have to be prepared for a complicated floorplan...'

'Anything in the immediate area?' the boy asked. 'Less than ten.' Miranda answered.

By now, the other mages that made up the core of the group had come to the front. 'Think you can handle ten Dunmer, Seth?' the young man teased. The Illusionist looked at him and smiled. 'Better than any Alterationist can, Julian...'

Miranda smirked. Julian looked amused. 'Yes, not much for offense, are we?' he offered. 'That's why we brought the twins, after all.'

Phoebe and Damian, the 'Frostfire twins' as they were known in the group, smiled at their peers. 'What do you think? Shall you two go first with some escorts?'

Damian shook his head. 'We can handle ten just fine on our own. Other people usually get in the way.' The boy said this without arrogance. It was a simple and well-known truth that the Frostfire twins often used spells with large radii.

Julian stepped aside to let the black haired boy and girl pass.

**********************************************************************************

The Dunmer soldiers were hopelessly outmatched. Between the battlemages and Frostfire twins the Bretons had far more firepower than any Telvanni's mercenary army.

Phoebe launched a single fireball at the ledge where the archers were firing from, the force of the explosion knocking off any Dunmer not already killed by the initial heat. You could tell where Damian had cast his frost spells because the tents in the immediate area were covered with frost.

Miranda, Julian and Seth hung back from the battle. Not because they did not have considerable skill in Destruction (they did.), but because they wanted to save their magicka for the when their skills were necessary.

Besides, why bother casting Destruction spells alongside the twins? You'll just look bad.

It was not long before little remained of the little village the soldiers had built.

**********************************************************************************

'Where is the bezoar?' Seth patiently asked. The Dunmer man reached into his pocket and pulled it out. Julian checked to make sure his gloves were on before pocketing the slightly slimy thing.

Seth released the Dunmer from his Command spell. The man blinked and looked around confusedly.

Damian killed him with a single frost bolt.

**********************************************************************************

The vampires were an absolute delight to fight with. Julian joyously blasted them with Burden spells and gleefully watched as the battlemages finished them off with fireballs.

Even Miranda was having fun, slamming them around with Telekinesis before snapping their necks with the same spell.

Seth and the twins watched amusedly.

Far behind, back in the underground village and outer chambers the mercs and battlemages were cleaning up, taking everything of value.

It seemed that this mission was to be profitable as well as amusing.

**********************************************************************************

'I see him.' Miranda said breathlessly. 'There's something else in the room-something strange.' She could not quite make out what the second life force was_. Nordic_, but...

The others smiled to themselves. The vampires were a nice change from the average enemy. But the Telvanni- he would be the most fun to fight.

Seth had obligingly cast Invisibility over all of them. The look on the Dunmer's face would be priceless...

The Telvanni mage was pacing. Was this a trap? What would happen if he tried to move the grating? It was _there_! The one thing he needed to take over all of Tamriel! The _ultimate weapon_!

A swirl of purple light caught his attention. Two strangers-children.

'Who in Oblivion are _you_?' he shouted angrily. What were these children doing here?!

With a smile, Phoebe lobbed a fireball at him. The disk of purple light the Telvanni conjured defected the fireball.

Before he could react, Damian cast a frost spell. From somewhere came a bolt of green light. From another direction, an orb of white-

The Telvanni found himself attacked from all directions. Who had cast what?

As they had cast their spells their Invisibility had broken, and all of them except Miranda were in view.

With a flurry of spell work the Telvanni had countered all the spells in time. He was worried though. The spells these people were using- Invisibility, Dispel, Paralyze, Burden... These were not apprentice level spells. Who _are _these people?

The mage steadied himself. Time to fight back.

With a swirl of crimson smoke a Dremora appeared, wielding a very sharp-looking claymore. It charged towards the young man with brown eyes and hair.

Meanwhile, the Telvanni found himself beset by a flurry of green orbs of light. Seth was churning out Paralysis spells, and the Dunmer struggled to counter them all.

A build up of magicka behind him gave him a few seconds warning. He threw himself to the side as a fireball, with a frost bolt trailing behind, flew past him.

The two spells were heading straight towards the blonde boy when a girl suddenly appeared from a haze of green light and created a film of purple light between Seth and the spells. They were absorbed harmlessly.

The Telvanni was furious. What, a _fifth_ now?!

**********************************************************************************

As the Dremora lifted its claymore up, it suddenly slipped out of his hands and dropped onto the ground below. Its weight had inexplicably increased ten-fold.

Almost immediately the daedra's armour was hit by a bolt of white light and increased so much in weight that the Dremora was pulled down with it.

Sadistically, Julian cast another Burden spell, causing the armour to crush down upon the Dremora, straining his ribcage-

*********************************************************************************

The Telvanni shot a frost bolt at the girl. She Reflected it, and he found himself having to Absorb his own spell.

He absorbed several other attempts by the children t either roast or freeze him, when he suddenly became aware that the blonde one had vanished.

In a moment of absolute clarity, he felt a weight on his shoulder. From Seth's hand flowed a powerful Paralyze spell, and the Invisibility veil broke.

The Telvanni knew he was done for.

As the Dremora was banished after having his ribcage burst, the Telvanni felt an overwhelming cold envelop his body.

In a second he was totally numb. In another moment he was dead.

**********************************************************************************

Faythung was a disappointment. Miranda had tried to light the grating with Telekinesis, and just she was about to break it he had stirred.

Julian had cast a powerful Burden spell, and Phoebe had set him alight. The body quite mysteriously burned away almost instantly.

With that over, Miranda had finished the job with the grating. The metal bars had snapped under the force of her spell.

Reverently, she had brought it out with another Telekinesis spell. Julian placed it into a specially crafted pouch. The Razor was one weapon you didn't want to get accidentally nicked by.

**********************************************************************************

On the way out the battlemages had shown the group the Morag Tong agent they had found. Julian sighed. Seems one of their contacts in Morrowind had leaked. They would have to be dealt with.

The mages had let him go, with the suggestion that he should tell his superiors to keep out of the High Rock Mage's League business; post-Oblivion-Crisis Tamriel was a dangerous place, and the Tong would do well to stick to Morrowind politics, which we've heard has gotten quite interesting...

Though not before they had made him hand over his enchanted items and change into mundane clothes.

**********************************************************************************

As they emerged, the mages enjoyed the fresh air.

Mehrunes Razor, Morag Tong equipment and an armory full of iron armour and weapons to sell at the Imperial City?

_Jackpot!_


	2. Chapter 2

_Conjuration is so often thought to be the preserve of the stereotypical Altmer mage. Depressingly few know that the most reliable and cutting edge research into Conjuration comes from Bretons mages, either working for the ubiquitous Mages Guild or one of the five kingdoms of High Rock._

_As such, the Bretons were the best-armed in terms of Daedra-related knowledge and were thus the best-equipped to handle the Oblivion Crisis. It is telling that High Rock came out of that battle with the fewest casualties, least damage to infrastructure and least economic loss._

_High Rock lost none of its major cities, in contrast to the loss of Kvatch by Cyrodiil, and the catastrophic damage sustained by Hammerfell, Skyrim and Orsinium, Elsweyr and Black Marsh. Even Morrowind and Summerset did not emerge unscathed, with severe damage done to some of the smaller ones._

_Also, while most of the other provinces emptied their coffers to wage a martial war against the Dremora (a doomed strategy), High Rock's extensive use of mages and battlemages saw invader after invader burnt, electrocuted, frozen, banished, bound... _

_As a result, the end of the Third Era saw not the rise of High Rock per se, but the decline of everyone else. The Fourth Era had dawned, and for the first time in living memory, Tamriel's greatest power wasn't Cyrodiil._

_After the war, as happens after every great conflict, huge and startling changes were seen to happen._

_The provinces seized upon the best opportunity in history to gain independence from the Empire. Skyrim and House Hlaalu of Morrowind saw that with the fall of their powerful ally, the Empire, their own positions had been weakened._

_Meanwhile, hawks in Summerset Isle expounded upon the failings of the Imperials to safeguard their provinces and pushed for the severing of ties. _

_Black Marsh and Elsweyr saw opportunity to challenge the monopoly of the East Empire Company, and each day sees new guerilla attacks._

_Close to Leyawiin, the Renrija Krin takes heart in the fact that the Imperial Legions are greatly weakened._

_And in Morrowind, all hell has broken loose._

_With the waning of House Hlaluu, House rivalry has returned, and all are out for blood. The Morag Tong has not seen such business in a long while. _

_And in High Rock itself? A secret civil war is underway, with five royal families eyeing the prize; for whoever can control all of High Rock would effectively control Tamriel._

_Perhaps Dagon is pleasantly surprised. _

_Tamriel looks set to destroy itself. _

*****

_Is necessity the mother of invention? Or does that title belong to ambition?_

The monotonous sound of pickaxes hitting stone was starting to get to him. Karle was sitting at his desk, high above the excavation site, in a small but well-furnished log cabin, his temporary office.

Before him, a man in creamy beige robes was explaining how the Ayleids obtained the material for their Welkynd stones from meteorites for millennia before they discovered an artificial process for making them.

The mage was wasting his time, for Karle was not really listening, but nodding and making polite noises for the sake of diplomacy. Though the man before him was no doubt an utter bore, he _was _from the League...

'...and we expect to find enormous quantities of them here, in several stages of development. This will allow us to reverse engineer the process. Finally, we will be able to replicate the process step for step!' the mage intoned enthusiastically.

Karle gave the man a smile and a nod before slipping back into his trance.

'The League trusts excavation activity remains within the budget?' the mages voice thinned out here. Ever so slightly...

The veiled threat brought Karle back to Nirn very quickly. 'Oh yes, of course.' He responded.

The mage seemed pleased.

Suddenly, a great clamour rose up from the site. Karle got up immediately. The mage in the creamy beige robe was out the door in two strides.

****

The workers, dirt and sweaty, stepped out of the mage and director's way like peasants before royalty.

'Let me see.' The mage said in a deathly flat voice. With an involuntary shiver the worker stepped out of the way.

Just in front of them, the two Bretons saw the beginning of a winding stairway. Very Ayleid.

Karle asked if he should call over workers, but the mage dismissed him with a wave. He ordered everyone to stand back. They obliged, all of them backing away from him.

The mage was still for a few moments, and a bright orange light glowed in his hand. With a movement the fireball hit the packed earth covering the entrance and blasted it apart.

More than half of doorway was now visible. With a series of smaller fireballs the mage cleared the rest of the earth.

A couple of the workers moved to pry the door open, but the mage blew the door in with a flash of white light. He turned around to face Karle, who had walked back to him.

'Send notice to the League and get the battlemages, I'm going in,' he said in one breath.

Karle nodded.

****

The Dunmer collapsed under a tree, exhausted. He had been putting as much distance between himself and those terrifying children.

The way they had swept aside any resistance...the brutal efficiency...

He knew he had to warn his superiors. The League had claimed the Razor...

****

_The kingdoms of High Rock used mages extensively in their bid for leadership. Mages to charm, beguile and dominate. Mages to spy on an enemy a thousand miles away. Mages to burn down towns and harbours. Mages to seek out and destroy..._

_The royal families took pride in their magical arsenals. They never thought about placing checks and balances. Uriel Septim's experience with Jagar Tharn was not remembered it seems._

_For once the secret war was well underway, the families found themselves betrayed, fooled by their mage advisors and overthrown by spell and poison._

_Theocracy. Monarchy. Democracy._

_Tamriel now saw its first Magisterium. A province ruled by a coalition of mages who had played their individual leaders against each other. A mighty League of Mages, in a position to challenge the Guild, and the Elder Council itself._

_High Rock was the greatest force in Tamriel. The League was the greatest force in High Rock._

_For the Breton mages truly did rule, making laws and enforcing them, unlike the Telvanni who were indifferent to politics, the Psijic Order, who only intervened in grand moments, and the Council of Summerset Isle, who were politicians first, and mages second._

_With money and magicka, the League was a force unlike any other. A fraternity, political body, and corporation._

_A government, Mages Guild and East Empire Company rolled into one._

_Tamriel did not know what to make of them._

****

A bolt of magicka blast the skeleton apart. Ever cautious, the four battlemages proceeded carefully.

The contingent had been split up into groups of four, and sent off in five different pathways. The Mystics back home had been right; the ruin was labyrinthine.

The group leader peered at his copy of the map. It had been impossible for the Mystics to pick out a precise pathway to the chambers they sought, necessitating an old fashioned search.

The League researcher had gone with another group.

And as expected, the built up magicka in the ruin made communication nearly impossible this deep in the ruin. The groups had been instructed by the researcher to mark their way to the chambers, if they found them, so the League could carry out a retrieval mission.

They would reconvene at the surface in six hours.

Deadly force authorized.


	3. Chapter 3

The ring on his finger tingled. Aurus brought his casting hand up and looked at it.

The finely wrought silver ring was brightly polished. It gleamed with the lights of the battlemage's torches and his own spell. The azure jewel set in it, glowed with its own dim blue light.

The mage's heart rate quickened withexcitement.Was this a sign that they were getting close?

****

_For almost two years the League researched the Welkynd stones of the Cyrodiilic elves, trying to reverse engineer them. Lore suggested that they were made from 'meteoric glass', a very different substance from the volcanic glass native to Nirn._

_However, the results of several experiments and the discovery of a batch of Welkynd stones in a cave somewhere in the west of Cyrodiil confirmed that the stones were produced in natural processes that could be replicated on Nirn, and that the Ayleids had begun to do so when the slave uprising happened._

_The batch in the cave was an important discovery. However, the stones there were in mid-process, and researchers were clueless as to how it was begun or to be completed._

_So here the League was, illegally conducting an archaeological dig within the borders of Cyrodiil, with what could only be called slave labour- poor Bretons brought over from High Rock and a handful of Imperials hired for the job._

_As for the Cyrodiilic Altmer mage who had spent his own life trying to prove the existence of artificially grown Welkynd stones, he died in an accident._

_Apparently he had cut himself with a knife dipped in poison. Quite tragic._

****

With a roar from the battlemage's Aurus was torn from his thoughts and forced to focus on the swarm of skeletons charging the group.

Wondering what kind of magic could stop their bones from rotting after all this time, the mage kept to the back while the battlemages engaged the attackers. (Or were they defenders? _There's _something to muse upon, the mage thought to himself.)

These skeletons were much stronger that the ones on the higher levels. After the standard opening barrage of Destruction spells the battlemages entered melee combat.

Though outnumbered two to one, the battlemages held their own.

One of them however, got hit in the side by the second of the pair of skeletons he was fighting. Aurus decided the time had come to step in.

All mages, even Bretons and Altmer, have to be careful with how they cast. Never use more magicka than necessary, keep in mind any spell type weaknesses, etc...

Being a mage of good education, Aurus knew better than to try frost or paralysis spells on undead. Poison too, was rather ineffectual.

Dashing forward the mage blasted a fireball at the skeleton on the man's left, knocking it down. The battlemage swung at the skeleton in front of him, chattering it.

Aurus used Telekinesis to hold the second skeleton down for the battlemage to finish off.

The man, who Aurus saw to be of a similar age to himself (in the thirties.) nodded to him in thanks before hobbling away from the fight, clutching his wounded side.

Aurus looked on the others and saw that there were only two skeletons left.

It was fortunate that he had them with him, Aurus thought grimly. Very few mages could take on eight skeleton heroes by themselves.

****

Damien looked upon his silver ring sadly. The glow was out.

Damn that Dunmer army. There had been so many of them. If it wasn't for the piece of Welkynd stone set in his ring...

Extraordinary talent got a mage only so far. When you're facing armies...

Julian and Miranda were on the other side of the carriage, staring at the Razor. 'What do you think?' Julian finally spoke.

Seth, sitting between the twins on the back seat of the carriage, cast a screen of Silence over the grating above Miranda and Julian's head. No need for the driver to hear this...

'Well, it's got a very straightforward enchantment. Instant death. I can see why they would want it.' Miranda said with a smile.

'But how useful is it? I mean, unless old Basilisk and Angel plan on going up to their enemies and knifing them individually...'

Seth laughed at this. 'Who knows? Maybe they just wanted to make sure that Telvanni didn't get his hands on it. And take over Cyrodiil. Maybe they thought he'd be a threat.'

'They sent a small army to deal with him. And _us.' _Julian countered. 'They only send us when its _important_.'

The other members of Onyx were silent. Julian had a point.


	4. Chapter 4

_Castle Magdalene, forty kilometres to the north of Wayrest._

After the exile of the Altmer overlords and before reunification by Tiber Septim, High Rock was a menagerie of dukedoms and pseudo-kingdoms. Many a petty dictator and despot claimed a village or settled area as their own little kingdom, giving rise to the Breton expression: 'Find a hill, become a king.'

Many a grim castle and fort remain from this time. In the recent past the Empire was in the process of destroying these fortifications to prevent them from being used as bases for rebellions.

However, with the waning of Imperial power the Elder Council decided that there were better ways to spend their septims. Soon after the League of Mages came to power, several of the better-placed forts were renovated.

It is in one of the larger and more spacious castles from those times that we find the leadership of High Rock residing in and ruling from. Twice the size of Castle Skingrad and with as many secrets, Magdalene was a fitting home. With oak and ebony furniture and nice carpeting the League had made a tasteful residential castle out of the former battle fortress.

Castle Magdalene: The Breton answer to White Gold Tower.

****

An middle aged Breton gentleman in black waistcoat and tie walked briskly. In his hands was a covered platter.

The dining hall's back entrance (the one used by servants, naturally) was a long hallway from the pantry, and the butler, being a man of professional pride, wanted to get the contents of the platter to his superiors while it was warm.

****

'Are they coming soon?' the little boy whined as he looked up behind him, lips in a pout.

The man in whose lap he was sitting smiled down benevolently. 'I'm sure they are, little Florian...'

The boy turned back, still pouting. The young man grinned and ruffled the little boy's hair. At the same time, the door behind them swung open, revealing a middle aged man in coat and tie.

With a smile he set the silver platter down and whipped off the cover with pomp. Sitting upon the silver were six warm sweetrolls, with pink icing and powdered sugar adorning the top.

Florian reached down to grab one almost immediately. 'Thank you for your timeliness Jeeves, I don't think I could have restrained him for much longer,' the young man smiled to his servant. With a dignified bow Jeeves left his masters to their business and took his place by the same door he had entered from.

Engelique (pronounced Oorn-je-leek...) moved his thighs to rebalance the young boy on his lap. He sat back and allowed Florian to enjoy his sweetrolls while waiting for his colleague to arrive.

****

Some backstory is perhaps called for...

As you all know, the League is comprised mostly of the former battlemages of the petty rulers of High Rock. Their stories of how they disposed of their lords and ladies can be quite interesting.

Engelique (nicknamed Angel because of his marble-sculpture features and feathered brown hair) was the battlemage of Duke Cohen of Camlorn, a dukedom in the southeast near the coast.

He had gathered the royal family of Camlorn within the reception hall to meet with some small-time dignitaries. As an Illusionist he had Dominated the guards of the castle and instructed them to massacre all present. He then killed the guards in 'self-defence', leaving a few shocked servants alive as witnesses.

The man he was waiting for, another League chief, was Maxime 'Basilisk' Bell-Charpentair, who poisoned _his _superiors at the sixty-fourth birthday dinner of the King of Evermor, earning his nickname 'Basilisk'.

He didn't do it with Alchemical poisons, though, but with a sort of reverse-effect Cure Poison spell, under the pretence that it was a luck charm for all present, utilising his skill in Restoration. Noone outside the League ever discovered the cause of death.

As for Florian, he was not a League Councilman but a child adopted by Engelique after his talent in Destruction was discovered.

As an orphan of eight in the care of the church, a new priest called Father Michel had had his eye on the adorable blonde and green-eyed child. A nun later found Florian sleeping next to a small outcrop of black glass, with a shred of a priest's robe as his blanket.

It was later discovered that Florian's powers were not only immense but purely instinctual. The boy had no conscious control over his magicka. Engelique was fascinated and took the child under his wing.

As the rather endearing boy never left Engelique's side he was fondly nicknamed 'the Fawn', and he was generally thought of as being 'Angel's Fawn'.

****

Florian had gotten through his fourth sweetroll and a glass of milk before Maxime burst through the front door.

Engelique sat up immediately, nearly throwing the unprepared Florian off his lap. A surpised Florian dropped his sweetroll.

'_They got it_!' was all Maxime said. Engelique smiled in triumph. If the Razor was theirs, they were one third there...

****

It had been two hours into the expedition, and none of the teams had found anything relating to the production of Welkynd stones. They had found some already made, and one group even found a Varla stone.

Aurus was in a bad mood. He was rather hoping they would find something in their first expedition. Then on the second day they would know where to look in earnest. From the look of things this was going to be a long haul.

With resignation he consoled himself that at least tomorrows progress would be much faster as there would be no undead to deal with in this part of the ruin.

At that moment, his group at last came out of the seemingly infinite hallway and into a vast and pitch-black chamber. The ceiling and opposite walls of the chamber were too distant to be lit by the meagre light of their torches.

Aurus was excited. Such chambers were rare; there were usually two or three at most in a medium sized ruin. Granted this ruin was enormous, but something could still be here!

'Everyone cast Light!' he cried. 'At the other walls and the ceiling. I want to see everything!'

The battlemages obeyed. Apple-sized balls of bright green light were launched in several directions. What they saw shocked the battlemages and made the mage ecstatic.


End file.
